As Heard on The Stephanie Miller Show

Monday, January 30, 2006

I was going to write a big dissertation on what the impact of the overturning of Roe vs Wade would be. Thankfully, the New York Times Cynthia Gorney beat me to most of it. So read it before you read anything I say:

As you can see, the Day We Have Been Dreading may not be the great horror we all thought it would be. As Cynthia said, 20 states (including California...and that's WITH AHH-nold) will continue to permit abortion. But it is going to be uuuuuuugh-lee! And to my anger, Our Side is pretty much totally unprepared for this. The good news, neither are bad guys.

Like I said, 20 states will allow abortion. That leaves 30 that might pass laws against it. And that is where the real fun begins.

A few years ago, I called Gloria Allred's program to speak to Randall Terry, then chief nutcase for Operation Rescue. And you know Gloria is a liberal with a capital LIBERAL. I just asked one simple question: "If Roe were overturned, what would the law be and who would be culpable?" I had never heard two people tap dance verbally like that in my life.

The bottom line is that the Pro-abortion side does not want to imagine life without Roe, and the other side is so giddy about the prospect of it that they forgot to think about what happens next.

Based on those words, the only punishment for abortion, if one believed it was murder most horrible, would be capital punishment: life/no parole or death. And who would be responsible? The doctor, of course. So would the doctor's assistant. What if you took the mother to the clinic? You're on the hook, because accessory to murder makes you just as culpable. And the mother? Since the "abortionist" is the hitman in this case, the mom would fry too, since she put out the contract on the little bugger.

And don't think being under 18 would help you because, based on many of the same states current laws, underage felons can be tried as an adult. So imagine....a 16-year-old girl going to Death Row because she had an abortion.

Unthinkable? I would hope. But considering the rhetoric and the mindset of those who wan Roe to go into the ether, not entirely out of consideration.

That is why I feel the Pro-Roe forces have been lax in putting the feet of the Anti's to the fire. We need to know their post-Roe plans because, IMHO, it would be the only way to expose how nefarious these people truly are. Because if those plans do not mirror what I just laid out, the anti-Roe movement would be exposed as the sham it is for their actions would not mirror their words. And if they did, they would be exposed as people who would murder the living to save the unborn. Either way, its a position that is pretty much un-spinnable.

So while we still have time, and still have a 5-4 majority, it is incumbent on those who want women to have reproductive freedom to release their fears and engage the other side on what their plans are post-Roe. My feelings is that the truth will get a lot of people off the fence.

Friday, January 27, 2006

The world view of the United States has worsened in the past few years, thanks to the Bush regime. This does not help:

By CHARLES J. HANLEY, AP Special Correspondent

The U.S. Army in Iraq has at least twice seized and jailed the wives ofsuspected insurgents in hopes of "leveraging" their husbands into surrender,U.S. military documents show.

In one case, a secretive task force locked up the young mother of anursing baby, a U.S. intelligence officer reported. In the case of a seconddetainee, one American colonel suggested to another that they catch her husbandby tacking a note to the family's door telling him "to come get his wife."

The issue of female detentions in Iraq has taken on a higher profilesince kidnappers seized American journalist Jill Carroll on Jan. 7 andthreatened to kill her unless all Iraqi women detainees are freed.

The U.S. military on Thursday freed five of what it said were 11 womenamong the 14,000 detainees currently held in the 2 1/2-year-old insurgency. Allwere accused of "aiding terrorists or planting explosives," but an Iraqigovernment commission found that evidence was lacking.

Iraqi human rights activist Hind al-Salehi contends that U.S.anti-insurgent units, coming up empty-handed in raids on suspects' houses, haveat times detained wives to pressure men into turning themselves in.Iraq'sdeputy justice minister, Busho Ibrahim Ali, dismissed such claims, sayinghostage-holding was a tactic used under the ousted Saddam Hussein dictatorship,and "we are not Saddam." A U.S. command spokesman in Baghdad, Lt. Col. BarryJohnson, said only Iraqis who pose an "imperative threat" are held in long-termU.S.-run detention facilities.

But documents describing two 2004 episodes tell a different story asfar as short-term detentions by local U.S. units. The documents are amonghundreds the Pentagon has released periodically under U.S. court order to meetan American Civil Liberties Union request for information on detentionpractices.

In one memo, a civilian Pentagon intelligence officer described whathappened when he took part in a raid on an Iraqi suspect's house in Tarmiya,northwest of Baghdad, on May 9, 2004. The raid involved Task Force (TF) 6-26, asecretive military unit formed to handle high-profile targets.

"During the pre-operation brief it was recommended by TF personnel thatif the wife were present, she be detained and held in order to leverage theprimary target's surrender," wrote the 14-year veteran officer.

He said he objected, but when they raided the house the team leader, asenior sergeant, seized her anyway."The 28-year-old woman had three youngchildren at the house, one being as young as six months and still nursing," theintelligence officer wrote. She was held for two days and was released after hecomplained, he said.Like most names in the released documents, the officer'ssignature is blacked out on this for-the-record memorandum about hiscomplaint.

Of this case, command spokesman Johnson said he could not judge, monthslater, the factors that led to the woman's detention.

The second episode, in June 2004, is found in sketchy detail in e-mailexchanges among six U.S. Army colonels, discussing an undisclosed number offemale detainees held in northern Iraq by the Stryker Brigade of the 2ndInfantry Division.

The first message, from a military police colonel, advised staffofficers of the U.S. northern command that the Iraqi police would not takecontrol of the jailed women without charges being brought against them.In asecond e-mail, a command staff officer asked an officer of the unit holding thewomen, "What are you guys doing to try to get the husband — have you tacked anote on the door and challenged him to come get his wife?"Two days later,the brigade's deputy commander advised the higher command, "As each day goes by,I get more input that these gals have some info and/or will result in gettingthe husband."He went on, "These ladies fought back extremely hard during theoriginal detention. They have shown indications of deceit and misinformation."

Thursday, January 26, 2006

What does a society do about people who have evil thoughts? If it's a religious society, it punishes them. Our secular society, however, in its most essential document recognizes the importance of both freedom of religion and freedom of speech, and the link between them. Congress shall make no law, says the First Amendment to the Constitution, establishing a religion or prohibiting its free exercise—or abridging free speech in general. In this society, we do not burn those with heretical opinions, nor hunt down those who practice witchcraft.

We have had some lapses from this idea during our history, but in general, the record has been good. State laws against blasphemy have been struck down; a law that required schoolchildren to pledge allegiance to the flag was disallowed, even in the midst of World War II; we finally repudiated laws against that most heretical of opinions, communism.

We had one serious lapse when we outlawed the distribution of material embodying evil sexual thoughts about women (that is, obscenity) in the mid-to-late twentieth century, but even there, the Supreme Court said that, to be forbidden, material must affect an average person offensively when judged by community standards (not merely affect members of a special audience) and cannot be banned if, when taken as a whole, it shows redeeming "literary, artistic, political, or scientific value." Previously, sexual material had been deemed censorable if it "tended to corrupt" its audience, or those who might be especially susceptible. No more.

In 1982, in a decision called New York v. Ferber, the high court examined a state child-pornography law that forbade material that didn't fit the definition of obscenity. Even here, the Court outlawed the photographic representation of actual children engaged in sexual conduct, not because it was offensive, but because its creation involved violating the rights of the actual children being used. The justices were very sensitive to First Amendment issues, and several concurring opinions pointed out that such laws should not be applied to works of serious "redeeming value"; that they should not be triggered by "clinical pictures of adolescent sexuality" or those "engaging in rites widely approved by their cultures"; and should not be invoked by the use of an otherwise-offending work for serious research, artistic, or educational purposes.

The federal child-pornography law was amended in 1984 to conform to the Ferber decision, and failed to include an affirmative "taken as a whole" serious-use defense solely because the Department of Justice testified that Ferber had made it unnecessary.

But since that time, some in our society have become more concerned with the danger of evil thoughts. In 1996 Congress threw out all this careful reasoning and enacted the Child Pornography Prevention Act (CPPA), a law being challenged this fall before the Supreme Court. Gone in this law is the justification of the harm to actual children. Gone is the constitutional protection of "redeeming value." Non-obscene child pornography produced by using young-looking adults, or computer-generated images that use no children at all, are to be banned and punished severely because they might "whet the appetite" of pedophiles (members of a special audience if ever there was one) or be used to seduce children into performing sexual acts.

The long history of First Amendment jurisprudence—which has decided in case after case that "giving someone ideas" that might lead to bad conduct is protected speech unless the incitement is immediate (Go do this now!)—should be overturned, argues the government in defending the CPPA, when the ideas involved are sufficiently evil. And anyway, the argument goes, computer technology makes it too hard to prosecute child pornographers if you have to prove that actual children were used.

Did Congress have reason to decide that the distribution, indeed the very possession, of such materials can never be justified? Was there proof of their evil effect? Who needs proof? Could sexual images of children be used in successfully treating pedophiles, and actually lessen the frequency of child molestation? We will never know, because a study to find that out would now be criminal.

Pedophiles—those who have sexual thoughts about children, not necessarily child molesters—are defined as evil. Anyone who says he has any reason to possess these evil images must be a pedophile. In 1999, journalist Larry Matthews was convicted of downloading and sending child pornography online and sentenced to eighteen months in prison and a fine of $4,000, even though he said he was doing it to research a story. Actually he was lucky, since he faced thirty years in prison and a fine of $500,000. Perhaps his thirty years as a reporter and his previously reported stories for a radio station on Internet child porn weighed in his favor.

This law allows for no possible "literary, artistic, political, or scientific value," and the result is chilling. The movie remake of Lolita starring Jeremy Irons couldn't find a distributor for a year. A young woman cartoonist depicting the molestation of teenage girls is under fire. Those people who thought a series of provocative Calvin Klein ads were child pornography some years ago weren't joking.

As in the anti-communist frenzy of the McCarthy era, the public is responding to the charges of pervasive danger. In a telephone survey earlier this year, 92 percent of those surveyed (not all of whom were Internet users) were more worried about child pornography on the Internet than about computer viruses, fraud, or terrorist activity online. The author of the study was quoted as saying, "As soon as we asked the question, it was overwhelming how people reacted negatively to child pornography. It's something that may or may not touch the lives of every American, but everybody is horrified."

Precisely because, in an age of sound bites, it can be seen as dangerous to be seen as supporting "child porn" (Do not forget that all classes of obscenity are still illegal: it is nonobscene suggestive images that are in question here), the implications for unpopular speech in general are grave. Child molestation, whether to create a saleable image or to gratify a sexual impulse, is indeed something to be horrified about. But to define a class of expressive material as so terrible that even its temporary possession taints a person irrevocably is to believe in witchcraft. If the Court decides that material deemed to be inciting in this way can be, indeed, must be illegal under all circumstances, how long will unpopular political speech be safe? True, to most of us, the idea of child pornography is so unpleasant that we don't even want to think about it. However, when it comes to making thoughts unconstitutional, we'd better think twice.

I repost this, because it explains what I have been saying....and shallbe....better than I can myself.polybi

Wednesday, January 25, 2006

Because of your efforts, NBC cancels 'Book of Daniel'DearDonald,NBC's anti-Christian program The Book of Daniel has beencancelled! Your efforts, combined with those of hundreds of thousands of otherAFA Online supporters, had an impact. NBC's decision to pull The Book of Danielshows the power of the pocketbook. NBC didn't want to eat their economic losses.Had NBC not had to eat millions of dollars each time it aired, NBC would havekept The Book of Daniel on the air. Because of your efforts, the sponsorsdropped the program. NBC then decided it didn't want to continue the fight. Evenan impassioned plea by Daniel's producer Jack Kenny could not match yourparticipation. "Ordinarily, I would never ask anyone to do this, but the AFA andbullies like them are hard at work to try and prevent you from seeing thesebeautiful shows, and that is censorship...pure and simple. And that is bothun-Christian and un-American," Kenny wrote. His attitude is typical in today's society. Non-Christians telling Christians what is Christian. People like Kenny don't want people like you to have a voice. They want to deny you the right to get involved. You are supposed to sit back and take the trash. And when you dospeak up they call you names. This shows us that we don't have to simply sitback and take the trash, but we can get involved and fight back with ourpocketbooks. I want to thank the 678,394 individuals who sent emails to NBC andthe thousands who called and emailed their local affiliates. Thanks for caringenough to get involved!Sincerely,DonDonald E. Wildmon, FounderanChairman Americanan Family AssociationP.S. Please forward this e-mailmessage to your family and friends!

MaI i say to you, Mr Wildmon..Withth all the sincerity that I can muster. FUCK YOU! Fuck you and the inbreds that follow you. "The Book Of Daniel" may not have been must see TV, but is should have been cancelled for the reason all shows get cancelled.....ratings and ratings alone.

People have 200+ choices otheirer TV screens, although youdopplegangerer, Brent Bozo...errrrrrr.....Bozell said that he would he happy of there were only 20 choices...as long as he made the choices.

So the line has been drawn. You want war, you'd better call up the DragonSkin boys because you are going to need them. You will need them when your Tax-exempt claims are looked into. As your life is looked into. As your political dealings are looked into. And don;t worry, Donny dear, people always leave paper trails.

I so much hope to see you in hell, Donny.....and swear the God I serve....I, the people who read this, and the people who STILL believe in freedom, are now dedicated to put you there.

Thursday, January 19, 2006

A lot has been said about "supporting the troops" here recently, and while I will not entertain Vietnam-oriented guilt trips that both the right and left wallow in, the question is who REALLY supports the troops. Read this from that bastion of left-wing bloviation, military.com:

Bean Counters Don't Get ItDefenseWatch Roger CharlesJanuary 06, 2006

When the post-mortem on our current military venture in Iraq is finally written,and if an honest analysis is allowed, the failure of the United States toprovide decent, best-available body armor to our fighters will be acknowledgedas the worst equipment failure of all.And, again assuming an honest report,the stupendous investigative work and writings of Defense Watch's own editor,Nat Helms, will be highlighted as the benchmark on this topic. Without meaningto embarrass Nat (too much), I think it is fair to say that his series ofarticles published in DefenseWatch have ripped the scab off a festering sorethat badly needs some strong exposure and treatment.

Nat has revealed yet one more sad example of a dysfunctional DoDacquisition system that cannot get body armor of acceptable quality to ourgrunts for a few thousands of dollars per unit cost, but one that can spendobscene amounts of taxpayers' funds on aircraft that cost hundreds of millionsof dollars each, or on warships that cost several billions of dollarseach.

Brigades of Gucci-wearing, greasy-haired, K-street lobbyists inWashington protect the bloated budgets for what Hack called the "toys," whilethe "boys" (and "girls," too) have no such proponents to peddle influence on ourCongress.

The end result is this same system with gold-plated, diamond-encrustedtoys cannot give America's Grunts that which most directly and yes, routinely,determines whether they live or die -- the best-available body armor.

(Perhaps some interested DefenseWatch reader will take a good look atthe disconnect between the DoD acquisition system that finds body armor at $4000per set too expensive, while the DoD personnel system is now paying $400,000 indeath insurance benefits to the beneficiaries of each KIA. Nat's latest articleshow irrefutable evidence that a substantial number of these KIA's would havesurvived had they had better body armor. Maybe the DoD bean counters willnow re-compute their cost-benefit analysis to reflect the new death benefits.These soulless bureaucrats and their Perfumed Prince bosses have damn sureignored the moral aspects of sending young Americans to the killing fields withinferior body armor. Sadly, the current rate of KIA's is probably too low toforce Pentagon budgeteers to re-calibrate their standing decision that favorscheaper, inferior body armor.)

The issue is a straight forward one. It is not like searching for thecure for cancer, or for a single cause of obesity, or for the origins of theuniverse.What we have here is on one level "just" an engineering challenge,and the solution must combine only critical factors: (1) the best designs, basedon scientific study and on input from those who wear it and fight in it; and (2)the best materials and workmanship that American industry can provide.

If either of these two critical factors is weak, incomplete, shoddy orotherwise flawed, America's Grunts will continue to pay for the failures withtheir lives, their limbs and their blood, period.Let's be very clear aboutone point. We are not arguing for some sort of "cocoon," as Marine General Peter Pace termed it last summer, which rendersAmerica's Grunts impervious to the ordnance of today's battlefield. Nor, are wearguing for some unrealistic suit of body armor that makes each soldier amini-Abrams tank on two feet.

Our Grunts must be able to take the fight to the enemy, and they mustbe agile, mobile and lethal when doing so.

The battlefields where our enemies await our Grunts are deadly places,yet there are those who falsely claim that the goal is perfect protection forour troops. This is an insult to the bravery of our soldiers, and mostespecially of those who have paid the ultimate price in service to our greatnation.

Nat Helm's DefenseWatch articles have shown clearly and directly, thatthe current body armor most often issued to our general purpose forces, theInterceptor Armor, is poorly designed. He has also presented indisputableevidence that our government has found both the materials and workmanship, inthousands of sets of the body armor, to be sub-standard. (The recalls ofthousands of sets speak volumes.)

So, what is the solution?If there was ever a case for the U.S.Congress to assert its constitutional duty to conduct oversight of the ExecutiveBranch's bungling of a sacred duty, it is this one. The Armed ServicesCommittees of both the House and Senate should conduct extensive investigationsinto this entire matter. They should determine just how our nation spenthundreds of millions of dollars on body armor that was in far too many cases,sub-standard in both design and material.A good place to start would be therole of the Army's Natick Lab (as us old-timers knew it) and AberdeenProving Ground in their dual achievements -- (1) approving inferior designs andmaterial specifications for body armor to be procured from American contractors,and (2) rigging the test and evaluation process so as to preclude a "fairhearing" for other designs and materials that show demonstrated superiority tothe current Interceptor armor.

Will the Congress rise to this challenge? I am not optimistic. Only anoutraged public can force their elected representatives to do their duty, and Isee little sign that enough Americans, care enough, to change the status quo.

Perhaps I should explain both my pessimism and why this is a"hot-button" issue for me (as it was for Hack). Nearly 38 years ago a Marine inmy infantry platoon was shot in the front torso while just a few feet from me.He literally fell almost into my arms. When I turned him over to check for signsof his wound, I first noted the frothy blood dribbling from his mouth. I'd paidattention in my first aid class at Quantico and realized I had a Marine with asucking-chest wound. My platoon corpsmen were otherwise engaged with othercasualties and I was the only person in position to render immediate aid.

Knowing that I needed to get the entry wound sealed, I preceded toun-snap the metal buttons the Marine's flack jacket. The enemy round had goneright through the zipper, mangling the teeth on the zipper, and making thezipper useless. Yet, I had to get the flack jacket open enough to get the woundsealed. What do you do now, Lieutenant?

Thanks to my K-bar, I was able to cut the cloth part of the zipper fromtop to bottom, opening access to the Marine's chest sufficiently so that I couldput the plastic wrapped bandage onto the wound, and wrap a strap around theMarine's chest to keep the bandage in place. His breathing became more normaland the bloody froth from his mouth subsided. (The Marine survived.)Irecall this incident in this detail because it highlighted to me the stupidityof the engineers in the Army acquisition system who designed a zippered front to theflack jacket. (The snap buttons worked just fine. Why have both?)

Their failure to understand what an AK-47 round would do to the zipper,and the problems it would make for someone like myself who was trying to treat awound earned them a stream of my strongest curses as I was forced to use myK-bar, and precious seconds, to open the Marine's flack jacket. It was onlyafter the Marine was evacuated that I had time to ponder the engineer's greaterstupidity -- placing a large seam right up the center of the torso of the"protected" individual. (I issued orders later that day to my platoon that wewould no longer use the zippers in our flack jackets.)

Today, 38 years later, thanks to Nat's great reporting, we learn that"seams" in body armor are still, too often, the location of the fatal wounds!!

The entire disastrous story of inferior body armor is due to the simplefact that when it comes to America's Grunts, no one in position of authoritycares. Forget the media events and the crocodile tears at Arlington NationalCemetery or the amputee wards at Bethesda and Walter Reed.

If any reader is a resident of the 12th Congressional District ofPennsylvania, you might want to read the following quote from yourrepresentative's web page:

"Congressman Murtha is so well-respected for his first-handknowledge of military and defense issues that he has been a trustedadviser to presidents of both parties on military and defense issues and is oneof the most effective advocates for the national defense in the country. Heis ranking member and former chairman of the Defense AppropriationsSubcommittee, a Vietnam combat veteran and a retired Marine Corps colonel with 37 years ofservice,a rare combination of experience that enables himto understand defense and military operations from everyperspective." (Emphasis added.)

And, If you get the chance, ask Jack Murtha to explain why his beloved Marines are dying today due to inferior body armor after hehas spent nearly 32 years as a powerful congressman with real authority over thevery defense budgets responsible for fielding the best-available protection forour Grunts?

SFTT President Roger Charles is an Annapolis graduate,a retired USMC Lt. Col. who commanded an infantry platoon in I Corps during theVietnam War, is the winner of the prestigious Peabody Award for news coverage,and was a protégée's of the late Col. David H. Hackworth. Rog can be contactedat sfttpres@aol.com . Please send comments to DWFeedback@yahoo.com

Side note: After some Congressional grilling...the cumination of two years of bitching and moaning by parents of soldiers in Iraq, the Army is sheepishly, like the kid caught with hand-in-cookie-jar-trying-to-make-it-right, is sening more armor plates:

http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/13603617.htm However, many solidiers hve had to BUY WITH THIER OWN OUT-OF-POCKET MONEY armor which is quite superior to that which the Army suggests, that being Dragon Skin by Pinnacle. HOWEVER, if for some reason you die with that Dragon Skin on, your family may not get death benefits:

Let's see......2004, Kerry had the election won as lat as that Friday......that Friday who shows up with a video tape...next Tuesday, just enough lemmings get our boy Bushie in....Fast forward to now.....the entire Empire is falling apart...everyone's indicted, discredited, or both. The can't even use 2257 to stop porn. And the only thing lower than Bush's numbers are the ratings for PAX-TV (or is it "I??").

Guess who shows up right on time.....?

Let's just say if San Francisco goes off the map before the elections, you know why.

Wednesday, January 04, 2006

[Enfield dominatrix Michelle Silva´s business was busted, her gear confiscated. What was her crime? Police appear to believe it could have e been ¨prostitution.¨ But experts say that could be hard to prove. ]by Meir Rinde - December 29, 2005

Silva has described a police raid on her home last month as an attack on her free speech. Enfield dominatrix Michelle Silva has described a police raid on her home last month as an attack on her free speech rights and a scare tactic by a town straining for a justification to shut her down. But initially no one knew for sure why the police searched her home on Nov. 16 and seized her computers and bondage furniture, since the search warrant remained sealed. Now the seal has expired, and the warrant is very clear: it states that the "promotion of prostitution" constitutes the bulk of the charges Silva could face.

Silva, 33, operates an S&M website, www.EmpressM.net, that offers bondage photos and videos that she argues she has the legal right to distribute. But the warrant barely mentions the videos; rather, it is Silva's other business as a dominatrix who invites customers to visit -- and pay hundreds of dollars for services -- that drew attention from police.

The investigation was prompted by an anonymous e-mail police received in January. "I thought you would like to know that you have an S&M prostitution house in your town," the e-mail said, according to the warrant. When Enfield Det. William Cooper looked at Silva's website, he found pictures of "'EmpressM' with nude males, 'slaves' in obvious states of sexual arousal," the warrant said. S&M practitioners, or sadomasochists, derive sexual pleasure from inflicting pain on others or themselves.

"It is clear that B&D (bondage and discipline) practitioners can receive sexual gratification for a fee as a fully developed rate structure exists," Cooper wrote in the warrant.When told last week by the Advocate about the potential prostitution charges, Silva responded with a puzzled e-mail. "So who were they looking for? And still no charges É", she wrote. "Did they make this up? I need to call my attorney."

In earlier postings on an online forum for people who run pornographic websites, she appeared unaware that she might be charged with providing sex for money. "No one was charged with prostitution nor was it ever referred to by the cops, that is not why they raided my home business," she wrote after the raid.

The search and seizure of Silva's property prompted a vigorous discussion on the forum, called "Greenguy and Jim's Ultimate Adult Webmaster Board." When the warrant was still sealed, other posters on the forum looked at some of Silva's websites, which included EmpressM.net, Northeastgoddess.com, and Fortressofpain.com. The web posters read descriptions of the services she provided at rates ranging from $300 per session to $1,000 for an overnight stay, and came to a similar conclusions as the one that police may have come to.

"Gonna be hard to fight the prostition (sic) rap when you accept donations or tips for sexual services, whether it involves intercourse or not," one poster wrote.

The questions of what constitutes prostitution and sex could end up determining Silva's fate. State law defines prostitution as engaging in "sexual conduct with another person in exchange for a fee." But the phrase "sexual conduct" is pretty vague, said Todd Fernow, a law professor and director of the Criminal Law Clinic at the University of Connecticut.

Fernow said a Connecticut judge tried to define sexual conduct in a 1980 case involving an alleged prostitute charged with soliciting a New Haven police officer. The defendant claimed the phrase was unconstitutionally vague, an argument the judge rejected. But borrowing from Webster's Second New World Dictionary, the judge defined sexual conduct as involving "sex, the sexes, the organs of sex and their functions, or the instincts, drives, behavior, etc. associated with sex." That's still pretty vague, and it's the dictionary, not the law.

State laws defining abuse, assault and other sexual crimes are much more graphically descriptive. One section of the criminal code states, "'Sexual intercourse' means vaginal intercourse, anal intercourse, fellatio or cunnilingus between persons regardless of sex. É Penetration, however slight, is sufficient to complete vaginal intercourse, anal intercourse or fellatio and does not require emission of semen. Penetration may be committed by an object manipulated by the actor into the genital or anal opening of the victim's body."

Again, that definition of sex applies to assaults, not to prostitution. Indeed, the criminal code also offers a definition of sadomasochistic abuse: "flagellation or torture by or upon a person clad in undergarments, a mask or bizarre costume, or the condition of being fettered, bound or otherwise physically restrained on the part of one so clothed."

But consensual sadomasochism isn't mentioned in the law, and is apparently legal. It's certainly practiced widely in Connecticut, by amateurs and by professionals who charge for their services. Whether it is considered "sex" or not still remains a matter of opinion.

The relationship between consensual sadomasochism, often called BDSM, and sex is a vexed one. In an article on BDSM published in the Hartford Advocate earlier this year, some practitioners were at pains to explain that at its core, flogging, binding, wax play, role-playing, humiliation, and the whole range of BDSM activities are intended to create intimate connections between the participants, and not necessarily sexual ones ("Slaves and Masters," July 21). At the same time, they admitted that BDSM sometimes involved sex.

"I have an opinion that's not popular among a lot of BDSMers," Dr. Gloria Brame said in an interview last week. Brame, an Athens, Georgia, clinical sexologist, is an S&M advocate and author of the book A Different Kind of Loving . "I say it's sex, and the hell with it. I say nobody is going to pay to go somewhere if they're not going to get turned on. They're paying to get turned on."Brame said in an ideal world, consenting adults could have sex or perform BDSM or engage in whatever combination they like, without having to worry about police raids. But she also said that someone who has a business like Silva's has to be aware that things get tricky when the clothes come off, and it's smart to check everything with your lawyer, well before the cops come knocking.

[polybi's take: As we grouse about Tribe taking away our dirty pictures to keep Toyota happy, We can't forget the real villians here, the perverted Xians who have made it thier business to turn us all over to thier idea of what Christ is, whether we want to or not. This IS a holy war, and thier idea of victory is all of us capitualating as neuters, bonded in manufactured shame, wearing our own mental burkahs, and screaming Praise God at the top of our lungs, while we hand over our rights, our sexuality, ourselves to these bastards with a pink bow on top. The only way this can be stopped is if we stopped them ourselves. This year, opportunities abound. Take advantage of them.]